Team-Mate Wars: Belgian GP

2014-08-25 13:30:00

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Nico snuggles up at Spa

In F1, the first thing you have to do is beat - and not collide with - your team-mate.

MercedesNico Rosberg 3 - Lewis Hamilton 9Race: Hamilton Lewis may have wasted his opportunities in Qualifying, but that was all swept away five seconds into the race after Hamilton got an immaculate launch away from the line and took the lead.

What happened after that is well documented, but Rosberg shaped to make an overtaking move that only the very best can pull off, and although he's brilliant at qualifying, moving past people on track is not one of his strengths (i.e. Vergne/Hungary). He wasn't even close.

Afterwards, in the Mercedes debrief, he said he left his car there to 'prove a point', presumably because he always comes off worst in mano a mano combat with Lewis. But in reality he wasn't remotely close enough to expect any car in front to allow him width through that turn.

The team are acutely aware that it cost them a 1-2 and now we have the post-race 'confession' shenanigans to play out. Because if Rosberg's mindset is that of the envious child, then it brings Monaco swimming starkly back into focus. If he's prepared to let the cars hit each other, then he's obviously of the mindset to park his car at Mirabeau in Qualifying - it wasn't that long after Bahrain.

We may not have seen the end of it yet. Because the FIA can still go back to the race result if they are made aware of information following the race. That's what happened with Alonso vs Vettel at the season finale in 2012 in Brazil where Vettel was thought to have overtaken under yellow flags. He didn't, and everyone at Red Bull breathed out.

This is a story that will be filling the pages from now till Monza.

Red BullDaniel Ricciardo 10 - Sebastian Vettel 2Race: Ricciardo Dan got a different kind of win and proved that he can do it as the 'hunted' rather than the 'hunter'. He timed his tyre life to perfection at the end of the race. His last lap was a PB, and Nico Rosberg was only lapping a second a lap quicker by that stage. Sebastian got the better of him in Qualifying, making it Dan 7 vs Seb 5, but Vettel's early-race wobble allowed Dan through and he was gone. So just when you thought that Sebastian was going to start turning the tide, Daniel cranks it up a gear. And the thing is - Mark Webber was going to be offered another year on his contract...

FerrariFernando Alonso 10 - Kimi Raikkonen 2Race: RaikkonenA Safety Car at Spa may not have brought Lewis Hamilton back into the mix, but it might have given Kimi Raikkonen a podium. Both Ferraris looked like they were saving fuel to get to the end. Raikkonen, who was only P7 at the end of Lap 1, made the undercut work for him superbly well and he stormed through in the first half of the race. With a 60% likelihood of a Safety Car the fuel might have been eked out, but there were no spectacular offs at Eau Rouge despite many high-speed shimmies.

McLarenJenson Button 9 - Kevin Magnussen 3Race: Button Post-race there were quite a few saying what a great race Kevin Magnussen had at Spa, but he looked more like an accident in the braking zone waiting to happen. Martin Whitmarsh told 'Checo' to "get his elbows out" last year and it looked as though the ghost of MW had returned to issue the same instruction to Magnussen. Whereas he was blameless for the German shunt which took out Felipe Massa at Hockenheim, there were at least four moments in the Belgian Grand Prix when he looked to be trying a lot harder than Nico Rosberg was 'to prove a point'. Twenty seconds on his time but no points on his licence looked light.

Jenson Button may not have hooked it up in qualifying, but put a memorable move on Alonso on his way to P6, Kevin wasn't so accommodating. Perhaps in the future the term 'Great little battle' should be used as a euphemism for 'my team-mate really p****d me off'.

WilliamsValtteri Bottas 7 - Felipe Massa 5Race: BottasFelipe Massa will have his own reasons to feel aggrieved about Nico Rosberg's intentional contact with Lewis Hamilton. Because parts of Hamilton's shredded tyre spent the first half of the race jammed into Felipe's floor making it very unstable. It wasn't really picked up in the BBC commentary, but Felipe fell back very sharply into the domain of the Sauber and the Toro Rosso. And part of it looked to be wrapped around Nico Rosberg's race aerial at one stage and what a fantastic irony that would have been if it had ripped out all communication with the Mercedes pits.

Bottas strode calmly on to another podium, the true recipient of the phrase 'ice-cool Finn' which is always a better moniker than the 'not very much to say, Finn'.

Toro RossoJean-Eric Vergne 5 - Daniil Kvyat 7Race: KvyatJean-Eric would presumably like to have proved his team wrong by outqualifying and outperforming the driver STR will be keeping on next year. But he didn't. Another hugely impressive display from Kvyat.

Force IndiaNico Hulkenberg 8 - Sergio Perez 4Race: PerezForce India were probably hoping for a lot more around a circuit where they have traditionally punched above their budget. The biggest mystery of all was Nico Hulkenberg's failure to get out of Q1 on Saturday, normally you could have bet your house on him shining in mixed conditions. It was just the sheer cold that got to him. In the race, Checo and Nico made steady progress up the order, but it was Sergio who maintained his grid advantage.

LotusRomain Grosjean 8 - Pastor Maldonado 4Race: MaldonadoNeither Lotus looked like approaching the points at Spa. Grosjean didn't recover from an early-race encounter with Jules Bianchi. In the flurry of action at the front of the race, the Saubers and Lotus cars were rarely glimpsed.

SauberEsteban Gutierrez 5 - Adrian Sutil 7Race: SutilThe Saubers circulated at the back with Adrian Sutil maintaining a slender advantage over Gutierrez. If the factory-engined Ferrari teams were struggling, it was always likely that their underfunded shadow would do the same.

CaterhamMarcus Ericsson 1 - Kamui Kobayashi 10 - Andre Lotterer 1Race: LottererIt was embarrassing for Marcus Ericsson to be outqualified by Andre Lotterer by a second on his (presumably) one and only Caterham outing. Thankfully for Marcus, Andre disappeared soon after the start and no further comparisons were available. He did manage to stay ahead of a Marussia till the very last knockings of the race.

MarussiaMax Chilton 4 - Jules Bianchi 8Race: ChiltonMax had a rare old duel with Marcus Ericsson at the end. While Dan Ricciardo finished off his race with a 1:52.9, Max crossed the line with a flying 2:00.4. He didn't pick up the OffonF1.com award for Slowest Lap - that fell to Fernando Alonso with a majestic final 2:02.987 (without losing a place, mind).

Eddie Jordan talking about who the McLaren team can recruit to improve their results. "The DNA is not stacking up - we don't know who at McLaren is going to supply the goodies."

Allan McNish talking about Jenson Button's ability in the wet, "He seems to be able to relish in these conditions."

Before the race Lee Mckenzie (who's coming across more like Jennifer Melfi the psychiatrist in The Sopranos these days) had a good interview with Felipe Massa who revealed that his wife gets very stressed when she sees him in big accidents, but not his son: "My son doesn't care - he just say, "Daddy rolled over."